This week marks the first face-to-face mass gathering of adult social care leaders in 30 long months.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) Spring Seminar is arguably the most significant event bringing together a large number of directors of adult social services, principal social workers and national social care leaders along with people with care experience. It has historically been a key time to discuss and assess what is really going on in adult social care. It is even more important this year.

As headline sponsor of the 2022 event, IMPOWER has been struck by just how much there is to discuss this year. In fact, right at this moment, adult social care finds itself at the epicentre of complex change across the public sector. Directors of adult social services have the unenviable task of navigating a path through more than 20 transformational change factors:

The implementation of a care cap, changing citizen expectations, cost of living pressures, Care Quality Commission assurance, digital care records, digital transformation, end of COVID processes and COVID recovery, fair cost of care process, the Health and Care Bill, the Health and Social Care Levy, the Integration White Paper, levelling up and devolution, Liberty Protection Safeguard changes, Mental Health Act reform, net zero plans, NHS recovery, offering care for all at council rates [known as clause 18(3)], uncovering unmet need, workforce challenges...and more.

These aren't just technical or process changes. Within a couple of years, people's experience of social care could be completely different.

Thousands will be counting the cost of care towards a new ‘care cap'. Those who pay for their own care might routinely approach councils to arrange their care at council rates, completely changing the market. Social care departments might be declared ‘inadequate' through a brand-new assurance regime.

Delivery of care might be transformed, with a tenfold increase in care technology and digital care records as standard. How people experience the connection between the NHS and social care could be completely different. And all this could vary by area.

With the introduction of the Health and Social Care Levy this month, this could be a period of huge expectation changes. If the public are paying for two dedicated taxes for social care, they may rightfully expect an increase in provision and service quality.

At the core of all the disparate policy initiatives, the central vision for great adult social care has been reaffirmed, not changed. Ironically, with so many trees we might lose focus on the wood.

With so much changing, there is a genuine danger of merely ticking the boxes we need to just keep afloat and missing the bigger picture. The sector must navigate through this complexity and drive towards the vision for great adult social care.

Over the last couple of years councils have done a fantastic job at keeping focused on how to deliver great adult social care, without being distracted by a big set of emerging challenges. Manchester City Council is a great example of navigating this chaos.

The set of challenges going forward has changed, but the fundamental task remains: putting people at the heart of their care, ensuring they can live happy, healthy, safe and resilient lives, independently at home for as long as possible.

The plenary sessions at ADASS Spring Seminar 2022 tackle different aspects of these challenges: leading through reform; ensuring people and places are at the heart of integration; keeping people and communities at the forefront (social justice and inclusion); being clear about the care we want, and, building back fairer.

Without doubt, these impending changes will impact each area differently. Through online polling during plenary sessions at the event, and IMPOWER's workshop, my colleagues and I are really looking forward to co-producing insight on this with the sector.

We will start to tackle the big questions on everyone's minds: What should we focus on first? Which of the change factors are likely to have the biggest impact locally? Where are the key tension points? And what unintended consequences pose the greatest risk?

The next couple of years mark an inflection point for social care. There is a consensus that change is needed. This is shared professionally and within the public. With the recent Nuffield Trust and King's Fund survey finding only 15% of people are satisfied with social care, change is overdue and welcome. But how positively will the sector manage to drive this change?

By the end of ADASS Spring Seminar we may well have our first real moment of insight on this crucial question.

Jeremy Cooper is director and head of local government at IMPOWER

@IMPOWERconsult